Lost Traveller [Paperback]

Antonia White (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1980

When Clara returns home from the convent of her childhood to begin life at a local girls' school, she is at a loss: although she has comparative freedom, she misses the discipline the nuns imposed and worries about keeping her faith in a secular world. Against the background of the First World War, Clara experiences the confusions of adolescence - its promise, its threat of change. She longs for love, yet fears it, and wonders what the future will hold. Then tragedy strikes and her childhood haltingly comes to an end as she realises that neither parents nor her faith can help her. The Lost Traveller is the first in the trilogy sequel to Frost in May, which continues with The Sugar House and Beyond the Glass. Although each is a complete novel in itself, together they form a brilliant portrait of a young girl's journey to adulthood.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'An admirable piece of work ... it would not be going too far to say that the book carries on the tradition of Charlotte Bronte in its unfolding of a young girl's experiences in coming to grips with the world' Times Literary Supplement 'Antonia Whit --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

A brilliant portrait of a young girl's coming of age, "The Lost Traveller" tells of Clara, the beloved daughter of a devoted though authoritarian father and an imperious mother. In this devout Catholic family, father and daughter conduct an intense relationship that seems at odds with their faith and with the need for Clara to become a woman. Set against the backdrop of the First World War, Clara experiences the vagaries of adolescence and, faced with the first tragedy of her adult life, she realizes that neither parents nor faith can protect her from change. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Doubleday (October 1980)
• ISBN-10: 0385271492
• ISBN-13: 978-0385271493
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,161,073 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Part 2 in a series about a young girls life., August 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The lost traveller (A Virago modern classic) (Paperback)

"The Lost Traveller" continues where "Frost in May " ended.However the name of the main character has been changed from Nanda Grey to Clara Batchelor.This book is about Clara's life throughout her teenage years.It is a wonderful and moving novel which deals with Clara's intense relationship with her parents and her life after she leaves her strict convent boarding school.It is set during world war one and is,in itself, a very tragic novel.I would reccomend reading it as part of the series rather than on it's own.The characters are so real that it's hard to beleive it's a fictional novel.I love this book and this series and it's really suitable for anyone.Read it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A minor master's work continued--Don't miss Antonia White, May 1, 2002

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lost Traveller (Virago Modern Classics) (Paperback)

The Lost Traveller is the second in the semi-autobiographical tetrology by Antonia White.

White was a contemporary of Woolfe and such Bloomsbury luminaries as Djuna Barnes. Yet she is relatively unknown to Americans. Thanks to Carmen Callil, who founded Virago Press and knew Antonia White, we can savor these classics which had been sadly in and out of print over the last years.

The Lost Traveller continues the story of Nanda, who is renamed Clara Bachelor in the second through fourth novels. We pick up her story as she finishes high school at St. Marks (really St. Paul's where White's domineering father Cecil Bottings was a classics master.)

Clara fears a career as a dried up female don at Oxford or Cambridge, though her talents in writing indicate she could follow her father's brilliant footsteps. In typically adolescent fashion, she gets a half-formed idea to go on stage after a stint at acting school. She has no real talent, but gets by on charm and good looks. She meets stage-struck, upper-crust and totally hopeless Archie and their fate becomes tangled together, despite her resistance to him and her crush on another actor, Stephen.

Clara moves aimlessly from acting to being a governess for an upper-class Catholic family. But tragedy strikes her there. While White also was a governess, this part of the novel is one of the few pure pieces of fiction she ever wrote. And it sets up the stage for "The Sugar House" and the return of Archie.

You should read "Frost in May" first, and fortunately, it is due to be reprinted soon. Don't miss these works of a minor master who sadly suffered from writer's block and left us all too little of her skillful work.